Supreme Court Orders Bianco to Return Stolen Ballots: 'Unlawful' Action Tossed
The courts told Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco to put the ballots back.
The California Supreme Court just handed Sheriff Chad Bianco a stinging defeat over his takeover of 650,000 ballots.
The justices ruled the seizure was unlawful in a pair of decisions released this week.
Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero wrote that the law contains mechanisms to investigate fraud that do not compromise the integrity of the vote.
Bianco, a favorite of the MAGA base and former Republican candidate for governor, thought he could bypass those rules.
He was wrong.
Riverside County voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 50 last fall.
The measure created a new congressional map intended to stop gerrymandering from Texas.
Bianco pursued claims that the local vote count was fraudulent.
He focused on a discrepancy between a hand tally and the official count.
The hand tally fell about 46,000 votes short of the official count.
That gap was enough for Bianco to believe a crime had occurred.
He sought warrants to seize the ballots as evidence.
Attorney General Rob Bonta ordered him to stop.
Bianco acted anyway.
He sent armed deputies from the Special Investigations Bureau, the Emergency Response Team, and the SWAT unit.
They swept up the votes.
Later, Bianco ordered his staff to count the ballots by hand.
State law forbids anyone other than election officials from touching ballot containers.
It is a potential felony.
Bianco argued he had no authority to be told what to do by the Attorney General.
He claimed state law gave him an
First reported by LA Times: California.
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